Seven of the nine teams they face on the road made this year’s playoffs, five made the divisional round and two teams are the Super Bowl 59 participants: the Philadelphia Eagles and Kansas City Chiefs.
Traditionally over the past two decades, with a few exceptions, the Super Bowl winner has hosted the league’s opening kickoff game on Thursday night in Week 1.
So, would the NFL pick the Lions to open the 2025 season on the road at the defending champion?
The Lions certainly have the cache, named America’s Team once again entering the 2024-25 playoffs. They opened the 2023 season at the Super Bowl-champion Chiefs, winning 21-20. A season-opening rematch two years later, should the Chiefs be crowned for a third consecutive season Sunday, seems a bit farfetched.
But if the Eagles win the Super Bowl, the Lions could be a prime target. Here’s how it breaks down:
The Eagles have eight home games, including their usual three in the division, plus five cross-divisional games. Their home opponents:
Washington Commanders
Dallas Cowboys
New York Giants
Chicago Bears
Denver Broncos
Las Vegas Raiders
Los Angles Rams
As we see it, the five most likely opening games would feature, in no order, the Commanders, Lions, Bears, Broncos and Rams.
The Rams, whom the Eagles survived in the NFC divisional round, and the Commanders, whom the Eagles crushed in the NFC championship game, would offer immediate postseason rematches.
The upstart Broncos are coming off a playoff berth and the Bears have last season’s No. 1 pick at quarterback and a new head coach in Ben Johnson, whose offenses in Detroit were among the NFL’s top five each of the past three seasons.
And then there are the Lions, the NFC’s No. 1 seed this season and pre-playoff Super Bowl favorites. They were upset in the divisional round by the Commanders, 45-31, but should return nearly all their starters (left guard Kevin Zeitler, No. 3 receiver Tim Patrick and cornerback Carlton Davis III are the lone free-agent starters).
The NFL has stayed away from division rivalry games in its kickoff openers — three times it has happened since the league went to a mid-week opener in 2002 — though the Jayden Daniels-led Commanders will be one of the most sought-after teams for broadcast partners in 2025. Both the Eagles and Commanders play in the NFC East.
The Broncos lack star power and the Rams don’t have the same juice as the Lions and, potentially, Bears.
So, should the Eagles win Sunday night to stop Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs from a Super Bowl three-peat, a matchup of the top two regular-season teams in the NFC from the previous year, who last faced each other in 2022, would be quite the potent NFL kickoff celebration.
The Lions last played in Philadelphia in 2019, a 27-24 Detroit win.
The 2025 NFL schedule will be revealed this spring, likely in mid-May.
Stay tuned for the best Lions coverage all year long at freep.com/sports/lions.
